According to the World Weather Attribution (WWA) and Climate Central report, so far, the global average is 41 extra days of "dangerous heat" that have caused "unrelenting suffering" due to climate change.
The 20 days of dangerous heat in Portugal are among the lowest in Europe, a continent that also presents less risk.
In the European context, below Portugal are only Iceland (13 days), Monaco (17) and Ireland (18).
Among Portuguese-speaking countries, Portugal has had the fewest days of dangerous heat, according to the WWA classification, while Equatorial Guinea reached this value during almost 30 percent of days (106).
Immediately below on the list is Timor-Leste, with 98 days of dangerous heat, still below neighboring Indonesia (122 days).
The list of Portuguese-speaking countries with the most days of dangerous heat follows São Tomé and Príncipe (89 days), Angola (73), Cape Verde (60), Guinea-Bissau (54), Brazil (49) and Mozambique (37).
In Macau, there were 58 days with dangerous heat, above neighbouring Hong Kong (57) and well above the average for China (24).
At an international level, those who suffer most from extra days of dangerous heat are the Pacific and Caribbean islands, with the record belonging to Nauru, with almost half the year on this risk frontier (149 days).
WWA is made up of researchers from various scientific and university institutions and has protocols and partnerships with local experts that allow for rapid assessment of extreme weather phenomena around the world, also using climate models and specialized literature.
The two organizations defined the "dangerous heat" days of more than 200 countries and territories by analyzing the average temperatures in these areas between 1991 and 2020 and identifying the 10% hottest percentile, with the values usually associated with greater health risks.
Calculating the average number of days hotter than normal in different territories, it was concluded that 2024 had 41 more days of "dangerous heat" in the world than in a scenario without climate change.
Among the recommendations are real-time reporting on deaths due to extreme heat and increased international funding to help developing countries become more resilient.